While you were making merry, the News-Obsessed Ectomorphs were discovering that the Middle East isn’t the only place echoing with the soft strains of Bush-style diplomacy. Apparently we’re also making much headway in convincing Fidel Castro to help us prepare for his inevitable demise.

From the Gulf Times, Doha, Qatar:

“Cuban President Fidel Castro has called US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ‘mad’ after having condemned the head of the US diplomatic mission in Havana as a ‘little gangster.’

“The communist leader’s latest tirade against the United States came in response to Rice’s meeting last week with a US government commission intended to prepare for a democratic transition in Cuba after Castro.

“’I am going to tell you what I think about this famous commission: they are a group of s***-eaters who do not deserve the world’s respect,’ Castro told the National Assembly.”

But since VDB has a strict rule against choosing an MMRS laced with profanity, we selected Castro’s next gentle phrase. The last MMRS of 2005, then:

“’In this context, it does not matter if it was the mad woman who talks of transition — it is a circus, they are completely depraved, they should be pitied,’ added the 79-year-old Cuban leader.”

Think about it: the whole world has its eye on the Middle East. But Cuba is always an idee fixe in the Bush political mindset. You’re stone crazy if you think Bush intends to leave office before Fidel. So look for Special Forces destablization tricks in Cuba sometime soon!

Next year — in Havana, baby.